Building blocks as construction toys help in developing hand eye coordination with children. In addition, building blocks provide children and adults with entertainment and help to push their creativity in building structures out of these blocks.
One type of building block which is popular with children and adults is the hollow plastic toy building blocks. These blocks typically have a top side that is the male side with the projections that extend from surface of the block, while the bottom side is the female side that is the receiving side, the other four sides of these blocks are the walls. As such, these blocks are connected to each other in a stacking fashion where the projections of the top side of a lower positioned building block are frictionally engaged to the bottom surface or the female side of another similar block. Such blocks are shown and described in expired U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,005,282 and 6,645,033.
These blocks are thus limited in that they must be interconnected in a single orientation. With blocks of this type, it is not possible to interconnect a block to any of the sides of these blocks, as they are only able to be joined together at these opposing side faces and stacked in one direction. Thus, to build a structure that spans a distance and that is elevated from the floor plane, these blocks must be connected to each other and linked together, usually in a corbel arch stacking technique. As such, these type of blocks are limited as to what type of building structures they can make.
Building blocks having multiple sides, specifically six sides, for interconnecting to one another similar building blocks is also available. One building block of this type is US Pat. No. 20130115849A1 or WO2012005567. This block has six identical faces in which each face has both male and female parts. As such, each face of this block may be interconnected to a similar face of another similar building block.
A drawback of this type of block is that each block is connected to another similar block. So, the blocks when connected are directly adjacent to each other and face to face. This causes issues when the block structure is made and if finish blocks were designed to be installed onto these, as many different finish blocks would have to be created to be able to achieve a smooth outward appearance to the block structure.
A limitation of both of these types of blocks is that once these blocks are interconnected together to assemble a larger structure, then there is no passageway within the blocks to add wiring, cable, rope, lighting or structural elements. So, even if the building blocks are capable of being connected side by side, they are limited as to the distance these blocks could span based on the characteristics of the blocks themselves.
Another drawback of both of these types of blocks is the appearance. After these blocks are assembled into a larger structure, these blocks have the outer appearance of children's toys in that the male and female parts being used for the connection of these blocks is visible.
Another drawback of both of these types of blocks is that each side of the block is not customizable. The sides of these blocks must be the color of the block itself. Thus, one side of a block can't be a different color than the adjacent side of the same block.